Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Straight James Franco, Gay James Franco

The straight
James Franco talks to the gay James Franco

With three films slated for this spring — True Story, I Am Michael, and Wim Wenders's Everything Will Be Fine — James Franco continues to be the busiest man in show business. Actor, director, producer, writer, poet, professor, social media maven, and cultural provocateur, he also continues to challenge us by challenging himself about preconceived concepts of sexuality and how they fit contextually into his art. So it was no surprise when he accepted this challenge to sit down with himself to discuss his life together.

Gay
James: Yeah, I know. Who’s doing the interview, and
who’s being interviewed?

SJ: Let’s just have a convo, and we’ll both try
to get to the bottom of James.

GJ: Okay, deal. But my question is, who is
the real James, and who is the
mask?

SJ: I guess that’s what everyone wants to know,
right?

GJ: I guess, but I also guess that even though I
have this public persona that is all wacked out and hard to pin down, or
annoying, or whatever, in some ways I’m still more real than if I were just
hiding behind a façade or whatever.

SJ: Façade. Meaning, like, a movie-star
façade?

GJ: Yeah, like I just hide behind my movies, and
try to look cool, and don’t talk about anything of substance, and just give
bland answers to everything like an athlete. “Yeah, we played with heart out
there tonight. Really brought it.”

SJ: OK, so, good place to start. Let’s get
substantial: are you fucking gay or what?

GJ: Well, I like to think that I’m gay in my art
and straight in my life. Although, I’m also gay in my life up to the point of
intercourse, and then you could say I’m straight. So I guess it depends on how
you define gay.
If it means whom you have sex with, I guess I’m straight. In the twenties and
thirties, they used to define homosexuality by how you acted and not by whom you
slept with. Sailors would fuck guys all the time, but as long as they behaved in
masculine ways, they weren’t considered gay. I wrote a little poem about
it.

Gay New
York

Gay New YorkIs the name of a bookAbout
Gays in New York.From the
nineteenth century on.

Back in the
thirtiesBefore the Second World War,“Gay” wasn’t even a word,Unless
you meant “happy.”

You were “queer”If
you acted queer.But you could turn a sailorAnd
still be straight

As long as you didn’t
speakWith a lisp or wear a dress.Funny how a concept can changeA
whole culture.

We have to worryAbout
who we have sex with.Weird how one little blowjobWill make you a fag
nowadays.

SJ: Yeah, Hart Crane fucked a lot of those
sailors.

GJ: OK, Hart Crane . . . so, when you played him
in the film you directed, The
Broken Tower, you fellate a dildo
on-screen and then have simulated sex with Michael Shannon. What’s up with
that?

SJ: What’s up with that? Well, I wanted those
scenes to be explicit, for two reasons. One, I knew that Crane was a openly gay
man in a time when that was rare, and he was so up front about it he scared his
more conservative poetry friends, so those scenes were a way to parallel the
in-your-face nature of Crane’s own sexuality. I also knew that the movie was
going to be full of dense poetry, so I wanted to break it up a bit with some hot
sex.

GJ: Okay, but didn’t you know that that would be
the only thing the reviewers would talk about?

SJ: Of course, but that’s their
shortsightedness. And once I went to film school and started directing my own
movies, I realized that I was going to direct only movies that I really cared
about in ways that I wanted, regardless of critique. As an actor I have been in
huge blockbusters like Spider-Man and Planet
of the Apes, and in critical hits like Milk and 127
Hours, as well as in successful comedies likePineapple
Express and This
Is the End, so I know all sides of success. But when directing my own
projects, the primary focus is the art. Yes, I want people to see them, and,
sure, I’d like people to like them, but my primary allegiance is to the work
itself.

GJ: Okay, whatever you say. But you’re also a
goofball, especially on your Instagram account. Do you want people to think
you’re gay? Wouldn’t it be a good thing if you were just a straight dude, like
Ryan Gosling, just straight and cool?

SJ: Why would you say that it was a good thing that people would consider me
straight? I actually like it when people think I’m gay; it’s a great shield.
Like the guy in Shampoo or the play thatShampoo is based on, The
Country Wife by
Wycherley.

GJ: What do you mean? You want to be able to go
around screwing other people’s wives by pretending to be
gay?

SJ: No. I guess I mean that I like my queer
public persona. I like that it’s so hard to define me and that people always
have to guess about me. They don’t know what the hell is up with me, and that’s
great. Not that I do what I do to confuse people, but as long as theyare confused, I get time to
play.

GJ: Some people think it’s
annoying.

SJ: If I’m so annoying, why do they write about
me? If they were truly sick of my shit, they would just ignore me, but they
don’t. I don’t do what I do for attention; I do it because I believe in what I
do. Of course, some of it is tongue-in-cheek, but that’s just a tonal thing.
It’s not like I call the paparazzi on myself or anything like that; I’m just
having a conversation with the public. If you don’t want to be part of the
convo, check out. If you do, cool.

GJ: Okay, but some people tell you to just screw
a guy, and then you’d get over all this gay art stuff, like playing the gay poet
Hart Crane or another gay poet, Allen Ginsberg, or directing the movieInterior.
Leather Bar, which has actual gay sex in it, or painting paintings of Seth
Rogen naked. Maybe if you just fucked a guy, you’d get over all this exoticizing
of gay lifestyles?

SJ: Maybe sex with a guy would change things,
but I doubt it. Like I said, I’m gay in my art. Or, I should say, queer in my art. And I’m not this way for
political reasons, although sometimes it becomes political, like when I voted
for same-sex marriage, etc. But what it’s really about is making queer art that
destabilizes engrained ways of being, art that challenges hegemonic
thinking.

GJ: But inevitably people will think that you’re gay; they
will think that you’re in Milk,
and Howl,
and The
Broken Tower, and Interior.
Leather Bar because you are
actually gay. That all these projects are ways of playing gay
hide-and-seek.

SJ: These are all works of art, and art is free; art is its
own realm. Of course, they can be read through a biographical lens and, of
course, through something like Interior.
Leather Bar uses my persona to
talk about some of these very issues, but they are still works of art and not
exactly nonfictional statements about who I am.

GJ: Is this interview a nonfictional statement
about who you are?

SJ: Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that I am
answering as James Franco, but no in the sense that it is a public statement in
an entertainment magazine, which means that it is part of my public persona and
not my private veridical self—and even if it were in theNew
York Times, it would be the same; it would be an expression of my public
self.

GJ: Well, why don’t you stop playing games and
give us a little of your private self?

SJ: Kind of impossible, don’t you think? As soon
as I share it, it becomes public. Here’s a little poem back at
ya.

Fake

There is a fake version of
me,And he’s the one that writesThese poems.He has an attitude and
swagger

That I don’t have.But
on the page, this fake meIs the me that speaks.And this fake me is
louder

Than the real me, and
heIs the one that everyone knows.He’s become the real meBecause
everyone treats me

Like I’m the fake
me.

GJ: And why is the public self any less sincere
than the private self?

SJ: That’s a good question. I guess, for me, I’ve disowned
it a little bit. When I was young, I tried so hard to control the public’s
perception of me, but I found that to be a waste of energy, partly because I
couldn’t control how people saw me and partly because I stopped
caring.

GJ: You don’t care if people don’t like
you?

SJ: Sure, I care, but I don’t let that stop me from doing
something I believe in. And let’s say all my fans suddenly turned against me
overnight. If I were to be honest, I couldn’t complain, because I have had an
awesome life so far. I’ve had a life many people dream about, and if it went
away tomorrow, I could still say I had my share of the good
stuff.

GJ: Is that why you teach? To give back some of the good
stuff to others?

SJ: Duh.

GJ: Want to elaborate on that?

SJ: Sure. I teach to stop thinking about myself for a bit.
But also because I find the classroom to be a very pure place, largely
unaffected by the business world. I like people who still dream big, who are
consumed by their work. And that’s how most students in MFA programs
are.

GJ: Okay, last question. What do you say to people who
criticize you for appropriating gay culture for your
work?

SJ: I say fuck
off, but I say it gently. This is such a fraught issue, and I am sensitive
to all its aspects. But first of all, I was not the one who pulled my public
persona into the gay world; that was the straight gossip press and the gay press
speculating about me. I really don’t care what people think about my sexuality,
and it’s also none of their business. So I really don’t choose to identify with
my public persona. I am not interested in most straight male-bonding rituals,
but I am also kept from being fully embraced by the gay community because I
don’t think anyone truly believes I have gay sex.

GJ: Oh, some do, believe me.

SJ: Well, good, I like that.

GJ: Why?

SJ: Because it means that I can be a figure for change. I
am a figure who can show the straight community that many of their definitions
are outdated and boring. And I can also show the gay community that many of the
things about themselves that they are giving up to join the straight community
are actually valuable and beautiful.

GJ: Okay, can we talk about Child
of God for a minute? You adapted
the Cormac McCarthy novel, and your buddy Scott Haze gives an amazing
performance that’s already been singled out by the New
York Times. It’s now on Netflix.

SJ: Yup.

GJ: So, what the hell, James? Necrophilia? This dude is out
in the woods having relationships with dead people! Everyone is going to think
you’re more crazy than they already do.

SJ: Well, let’s remember that it’s a faithful adaptation of a book by Cormac McCarthy, who
won the Pulitzer and was in Oprah’s Book Club. But you’re right; it’s grizzly
material. But I didn’t make the film because I was interested in sex with dead
bodies; I did it because I was interested in who we are when we are alone and
who we are when we’re intimate with another person. Lester Ballard is a
character who has full relationships with his corpses— meaning he fills in both
sides of the mental relationship, but he gets a body to interact
with.

GJ: Sort of like this conversation with yourself, except
there is onlyone body.

SJ: Shit, I’d love to fuck you. Would that make me
gay?

GJ: You jerk me off all the time.

SJ: Yeah, but I’m thinking about women when I do it or
watching straight porn.

GJ: So, I know tons of gay guys who watch straight
porn.

SJ: Anyway, this interview is going a little south, and I
don’t think my publicist will appreciate us talking about
porn.

GJ: FINE, whatever, one more
question.

SJ: You said the other question was the
last.

GJ: Well, you have a lot of fucking projects to promote,
and your publicist wants you to talk about all of them.

SJ: Don’t tell me what my publicist
wants.

GJ: Why not? She’s my publicist
too.

SJ: Yeah, but she wants you to stay out of the public eye because you’re
gay.

GJ: That’s bullshit. Robin Baum doesn’t give a shit what I
do.

SJ: I don’t know about that, but anyway, what’s your
question?

GJ: Tell me about this new film directed by Justin Kelly,
one of the editors from Milk.

SJ: Basically, it’s about this guy, Michael Glatze, who was
this huge gay activist in San Francisco in the early 2000s who worked for XYmagazine
and would go around to high schools telling kids it was okay to be gay. And then
he had this huge turnaround, and found God, and then became Christian, and then
was ordained as a Christian minister, and now he’s married to a woman. At first
he turned on his ex-boyfriend and all his friends and said that if you’re gay,
you’re going to hell. But I think he’s since pulled back a
little.

GJ: Well, that’s nice of him.

SJ: Ha, yeah, he went a little extreme for a
minute.

GJ: Hmmm, and why did he go
straight?

SJ: He thought he was going to
die.

GJ: And why are you gay?

SJ: Because it’s more fun.

GJ: And why would you make that movie? I mean, what’s the
point?

SJ: Well, it’s not as if it’s a movie that is itself
anti-gay. It’s just a very interesting and unique way to examine the way that
straight and gay is defined, by others and how we define
ourselves.

GJ: (thinks for a minute) You know, you’re pretty
arrogant.

SJ: Why do you say that?

GJ: I don’t know, this whole interview. Like, how dare you
interview yourself? And it’s just so annoying because you’re always trying to be
so meta, like in This
Is the End.

SJ: Dude, this interview wasn’t my idea. I was asked by this magazine to interview myself. And I
didn’t write This
Is the End, but I’m glad I was in it. It was a way to talk about a lot of
stuff without being threatening because it was comedic.

No comments:

BE LEGAL

READ THIS!

This is a blog for expanding awareness and understanding in artistic, educational, and scientific contexts of why natural is hottest and best, encouraging camaraderie among fellow naturalists, and standing up to the tyranny of manscaping! ;-)

ADULTS ONLY (minimum age 18-21 depending on where you are) who choose to enter and view for art appreciation, entertainment, and increased awareness. It contains explicit adult language and images.

DO NOT SCROLL DOWN unless you are of legal age in your local jurisdiction to view such material. If you are not of legal age or live somewhere with medieval laws, this ain’t the place for you. Back off. Leave. Go home!

Okay, if you're legal and still here, click on the pix to see 'em full size. By scrolling down and viewing any image, you acknowledge that you are of legal age to view explicit adult content where you live and that you choose to view explicit adult content for your own personal, private entertainment and broadening of your artistic horizons.

No kids, no commercials, no selling. No comments attacking other posters. Good dose of progressive politics, interesting articles, and funnies. Have a great time!

No Minors

RATE THIS BLOG at Best Male Blogs

RATE THIS BLOG at Gay Demon

THE FINE PRINT

This blog is for entertainment purposes only. It contains adult-oriented images, fiction, and explicit language. There is zero tolerance for content that exploits children and no content that encourages or promotes sexual attraction towards children.

I am not responsible for nor do I or have control of the content of any Internet links. Information contained herein may include errors or inaccuracies and I do not warrant the accuracy or reliability of any content.

Images have been collected from free Internet websites. Neither photographs, written material, nor other media should be construed as anything except art appreciation, nor indicative of any person’s identity, sexual orientation, occupation, or conduct. The terms "boy" and "boys" refer to gender only, not age, and all images are assumed to be of legal age adults. The operator of this blog is not the primary producer (as that term is defined in 18 U.S.C. Section 2257 and 28 C.F.R. Part 75) of any of the visual content contained herein.

This site is non-commercial and loads no adware, spyware, or popups. In accordance with Title 17 USC Section 107, any copyrighted material contained herein is distributed under fair use without profit or payment.

BTW, one of the dumbest things I know is people downloading millions of pix a year from the Internet onto blogs and websites and labeling them as their own. If you didn’t take the picture or own the rights, it doesn’t belong to you and you shouldn't be putting your label on it. But if you are the copyright owner of an image you see here and you want it removed, just let me know in a comment and it’s gone.

Me

Scooter & Bubba Forever. Me and Scooter started this blog to share stuff we like. First thing we like is being Scooter & Bubba. Second thing we like is being natural. Third, treat everybody like a human being (do unto others...). What we don't like? Narrow-minded assholes. Everybody else is welcome!

NATURAL IS HOT, SHAVED IS NOT

BiPride

Natural Is Hot

Manscaped Is Not

ABOUT THIS BLOG

This blog highlights the hotness of “natural” guys. When we go through puberty, guys develop hair on various parts of our bodies. It’s a natural thing. Some of us have a little, some a lot. Each one of us is completely individual. That’s natural, too. One of the best things about being a guy is being unique and not just an imitation of somebody else.

There’s been an anti-natural campaign going on for a long time: telling healthy guys that if they wannabe cool, they have to mow down the garden of male identity. Some campaigners are pervs who want dudes to look like boys. Some are women who want to control (i.e., emasculate) their men. Some are ignorant teenage girls, and some are muscle freaks who get off on seeing muscles oiled up without hair on 'em, but that’s a different fetish.

It’s not as destructive or painful as circumcision, but it can mess with your head. How can you be proud of who you are if you believe hair in the right places is wrong? Whether it’s “manscaping” pubes or chest hair, shaving pits, or any of the other phony shit, take pride in being the only one of you there is. I have no respect for dudes who shave their pits, pubes, chest, or legs. Manscaping is queer . . . and not in the good way. Smooth as a baby's ass or hairy as whatever, be proud of what you’ve got. As Scooter and Bubba say: NATURAL IS HOT, SHAVED IS NOT!

If you like the buffed, puffed, trimmed, shaved look, go for it. If you’re doing it for your partner, figure out why s/he likes it. Hygiene? Take a shower! If you just like the look, fine, but think how really queer (not the good way) it looks to have shaved pits and hairy legs, or a shaved crotch and scruffy face. If you believe in it, go all the way. But stop teaching young dudes that natural is bad. Stop making them ashamed of who they are.

We all have the right to be and look the way we want, but taking something away does not add to what you’ve got. Like the guy who’s insecure and thinks his junk looks bigger if it ain’t surrounded by full bush. Sorry, pal, it just makes you look like a plucked chicken. Stubble is stupid.

The challenge for a little non-commercial blog like this that's here for your art appreciation and entertainment (or whatever enjoyment you get) is that so many dudes have been persuaded what’s natural is bad and the only way to fit in is to desecrate your natural gifts. It's a challenge to find pics of guys who really are all natural. So we (me and you who send pics) do the best we can. And once in a while there are exceptions -- guys who are so good lookin’ you gotta give 'em a pass. Even then, folks who follow this blog (yes, there are actual biological girls) say hey, that dude was really hot but imagine how much hotter he’d be if he didn’t shave-trim-manscape his chest-pits-pubes, etc. In the end though, like they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

BTW, no commercials, no selling, no asking for money. Good dose of progressive politics now and then. Glad you’re here. Have fun!